2 Answers

4 votes

Say I have a hypothetical Squirtle with 0 base HP.

-His minimum HP at Lv. 100 would be ZERO.
-His maximum HP at Lv. 100 would be ZERO.
-Giving him 252 HP EVs would mean his HP would be ZERO.
- He would always be knocked out. Even Nurse Joy couldn't help him.

Seriously, though. Stats work by multiplication. One of the most basic laws of mathematics is that if you multiply something by zero, the answer is zero. Like this formula:

(x)(0)=0

Why? because zero is not a number. It is a place holder. This means that it cannot be multiplied by anything, therefore not increasing in size or quantity, because it does not exist.

So sorry, but if you had a Pokémon with a base Attack of zero then it would always be zero.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that Grime Time's answer is incorrect. Theses are the formulas for calculating Pokemon stats:
a is base stat (for a particular species or form)
b is level
c is IVs
d is EVs
f is nature (x1.1 for beneficial, x0.9 for hindering)
HP: b(2a+c+d/4)/100+10 except for Shedinja, whose HP is always 1.
Other stats: f(b(2a+c+d/4)/100+5)
A Pokemon with a base HP of 0, at level 1, with 0 IVs and 0 EVs would have 10 HP, according to the formula.source
PS. 0 is a number; it's simply imaginary. (note that by some definitions 0 is both real and imaginary)
PPS. PS stands for Play Station.

I'm sorry, I had to. In all seriousness, zero is a placeholder. Not a number. It literally is defined as "naught" in the Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus. Naught means "nothing". Zero is not a number. If it were a number, you should be able to divide by it. Perhaps you're aquinted with the formula [x ÷ 0 = i]? "i" in mathematics stands for a number that does not exist.

I never said zero was imaginary, I said the product of x ÷ 0 is imaginary. Ik that zero is an integer, but it behaves completely different than the rest of them (kind of like one). I'm waaaay too tired to get in a math debate, and besides it's summer ;D

Have you not considered that it's not even 0 that matter to this answer? HP will always be *at least* 10, because 10 is added on to the result of the "main" formula. Even if the main formula was equal to 0, 10 will always be added on to it. A similar rule applies for other stats; 5 is added on after the bulk of the calculations, and is also multiplied by whatever number the Pokemon's nature gives. Since the lowest number a nature can produce is 0.9, the lowest number a stat other than HP can be is 4.5, which the game rounds to 4 iirc.

tl;dr: with 0 as a base stat, HP = 10 and other stats = 4 or 5 depending on the Pokemon's nature.

It's without a doubt a very legal hypothesis. However, neither answers are wrong since they are both theories and have their own set of exceptions.
- Astro's theory is contradicted by sumwun's
- sumwun's theory can also be wrong, as on some pokemon like Shedinja these formulas do not apply

TL;DR: Arguing over this is pointless, we would never arrive at conclusions. Both answers are correct and wrong.